Finally Back from Body Shop

 Yesterday Darrell finally got the paint job and bodywork done for the car.  Here's a picture from late last week at Darrell's shop:

Then here's one after delivery to the shop in Boonville yesterday:

Paint and bodywork looks very good.  Things will start moving along quickly now, I suspect.

Car's Back in Boonville

Darrell is running behind on getting the rest of the bodywork and paint done, so he brought the car to Ray's shop in Boonville so Ray and I could get some other work done on the car.

So here's the current residence for the car:

Ray and I focused initially on getting the car in running order.  We put in the radiator and heater so we'd have a cooling system.  We installed the master cylinder and it's connecting lines, then bled the hydraulics.  Despite having previously blown out the metal lines we got some nasty looking black stuff out when bleeding.  Clutch side bled just fine, brake side still tends to "pump up".  This could be entrapped air, or problems getting drum brakes adjusted correctly, or problems with the master cylinder (which had been new several years ago).  We've got enough brakes to drive it anyway.

We also installed the new pertonix electronic ignition.  The engine rungs very well, good oil pressure and temps look good.  Had some leaks to battle, but they are being addressed.

Here's Vince taking the car for it's first drive off the lift:

Then here's Ray driving the car around the parking lot aka "race track" behind the shop:

There are more tasks we think we can get done before taking the car back to Darrell - most notable being installing wiring and all the components in the dashboard.  Ray and I both are gone a lot starting the end of this month, so hopefully we can get the car back to Darrell while we are gone.

Back Together Again

Suffered some delays waiting on Darrell to get the body ready to be installed on the chassis.  But on July 7th we finally got the two back together!

Had plenty of help.  Turns out an MGA body without fenders weighs I'd guess less then four hundred pounds - four guys picked it up and I"m pretty sure each guy was lifting less than a 100 pounds.  We also learned you should not install the gas tank to the chassis prior to body install - the angled filler neck simply does not clear as you bring the body into place.  Oh well.

I counted 26 5/16 inch fine thread bolts needed to complete the install.  Plus 14 pieces of sheet cork and 8 pieces of foam spacer.  By the time we were done all of these pieces were correctly in place.

Here's some pics:

Now we wait until Darrell completes the rest of the bodywork and paint.  He will install fenders, doors, hood, and trunk lid.

Engine Fired Up!

The fuel pump made noise but didn't move fuel, so we had to buy a new one.  We also set the ignition timing statically plus installed new distributor cap and wires.  Later we plan to convert it to a Pertronix unit, but this leaves us with a functional engine.

We had several fuel leaks in the carbs and fuel lines, but got those fixed.  Then tried to start it up, and it ran!  Can't run it long, no coolant system at all.  But we think it ran pretty darn well, check it out:

Chassis Almost Done

Finally got the drivetrain installed in the chassis.  Had to get creative to install the clutch - we did not have the correct pilot tool so we installed the transmission to the engine with the clutch "loose" and then tightened the clutch bolts through the starter hole, worked pretty slick!  Good excuse to buy a set of "crows foot" extensions to get the bolts torqued.

Here's some pics of the drivetrain in place:

We even got the new "Tourist Trophy" stainless exhaust installed:

We tried to spin the motor to check out oil pressure and compression, but the starter motor smoked and quit.  Local auto electric shop said it's not worth fixing.  But they had a rebuilt one on the shelf that we got for a good price.  With the rebuilt starter the engine spun fine, here's the data:

55 psi oil pressure on starter motor alone looks pretty good.  Cylinder #2 has low compression - from prior experience this may clear up after running the engine, or we may have to have a valve job done on the head.  At any rate, the engine's basics look pretty good.

Drivetrain Work

Ray did a great job of cleaning and painting the engine block.  Vince then did a lot of assembly work, plus cleaning of components.

For example, here's the carbs with one clean and the other not:

They were pretty nasty.  Vince also found some broken and worn out pieces of the carb linkage.  Basically the choke higher idle speed was not functional, plus the choke linkages are all "wallered out".  But these are all components that can be easily replaced.  I'll bet this thing was hard to get going when cold. 

Here's two shots of the engine cleaned up with most components in place:

We also got the transmission back from it's rebuild:

We have a plan of attack for mating the body to the frame.  Ray and Vince will install the drivetrain in the chassis and deliver is to Darrell's body shop.  Meantime, Darrell will finish body prep and paint the under hood area only.  Ray and Vince help Darrell drop the body onto the chassis.  The engine compartment will be in finished state but the exterior of the body will need to still be painted.  Once Darrell finishes paint then it's back to Ray's shop to finish the car!

Chassis Continues

Nick the welder did a great job of welding the new floor tracks to the frame.  Here's some pics:

Nick taking a break, nice smile huh?

Pieces welded in place:

We also filled in any remaining non-structural holes in the frame members.  The floors did require some trimming to make them fit, but they turned out real well:

Nick even welded back the bracket to attach the rear brake line:

The fuel line, rear brake line, and rear wiring are all correctly installed in the track going down the inside of the passenger side frame member.

We checked out the front suspension by cobbling together a coil spring compressor to release the spring pre-load and then move the suspension pieces to make sure there was no slop.  The kingpins and other joints seem to be in great shape:

We checked the fuel sending unit, did not give a reading, upon dismantle found a broken wire between the rheostat and the connection.  We'll have to get a new sending unit!

Ray is making good progress on cleaning and painting the engine.  We are expecting another shipment of parts by the end of this week, otherwise we will be running out of work!

Frame Work

Ray spent a lot of time cleaning up and starting the POR15 on the frame.  He also removed the four plywood floor pieces and found about half of the mounting tracks were rusted away.  So he ordered new ones.

Vince took the old floor pieces and made replacements from a sheet of 3/8 inch plywood:

They fit pretty tight, but easier to make them smaller than bigger!

Our favorite welder Nick has agreed to weld the replacement tracks in place.  Ray and Vince are doing the prep work.  We decided to install the new tracks with self drilling sheet metal screws in their correct position.  This means we also did the modifications to the tracks as needed to make them fit with any portion of the factory track that was still there.  This process seems to work real well, and will make Nick's job a lot easier.  Here's a pic of the passenger side with the new tracks in place via sheet metal screws:

Nick will not only weld the new tracks in place, he'll also weld cover pieces over the pieces of the frame that have holes due to corrosion.

This car had apparently sat outside with the top off for some period of time.  The frame corrosion is everywhere wet plywood (ie floors) met metal. 

We've also cleaned the points on the fuel pump (it works now), got the new ring gear installed on the flywheel (thanks to Nick again), and have all the required pieces to CTC Drivetrain in Chandler to complete the rebuild of the transmission.  Starting on brakes too, got left front installed.  All metal lines (brake and fuel) have been cleaned and inspected, no corrosion issues, they are ready to be re-installed.  The Covid 19 pandemic has turned out to make a lot of free time available for Ray and I, we get bored at home so we "quarantine" ourselves at the shop for 3 to 5 hours each day.

New Project - 1956 MGA

Ray and I have agreed to finish another stalled restoration project.  Our last one on a 1952 MGTD turned out real well, so we decided to tackle another one.  This car belongs to a fellow club member, Dick.  The body was already removed from the frame and was at Darrell's, our favorite sheet metal and paint guy.  Today we brought the frame, engine, tranny, and a few other pieces to the shop in Boonville to get started.

Here's some general pics of the frame and other pieces:

Dick says the engine is fine other than needing to have the ring gear replaced on the flywheel.  He also says the tranny needs some syncros replaced - we've found a local shop that will rebuild a manual tranny for a reasonable price so we'll give them a try.

And so the process begins again!